Married for Real (Harlequin Presents)

by Lindsay Armstrong

  She looked at her short, oval, unvarnished nails and grimaced, taken a bit by surprise. ‘They’re not exactly practical, long nails, are they?’

  ‘Many women have them, however.’

  ‘I would have thought…’ She stopped.

  ‘Go on,’ he prompted.

  ‘I would have thought you liked your women ultra-sophisticated, Declan,’ she said deliberately.

  He smiled enigmatically. ‘Which just goes to show you shouldn’t have too many preconceived ideas about me, Arizona. Mind you, I’ve seen you looking pretty sophisticated at times.’

  She grimaced. ‘Sophisticated clothes, perhaps. But since I’m happiest when I’m gardening or making plans for this place or with the kids, I don’t think I’m particularly sophisticated at all.’ She stopped rather suddenly and looked defiant first then weary.

  ‘What?’ he said softly.

  ‘Didn’t I give myself away—making plans for this place,’ she repeated ironically.

  ‘A little,’ he said reflectively, ‘but I’d always rather you were honest with me, Arizona, so don’t worry about it too much.’ And so saying; he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  Arizona was frozen for a long, strange moment during which she was assaulted by the oddest sensations. She seemed to tingle all the way up her arm. If she’d thought she was conscious of Declan Holmes before, she was doubly so now, and she got the unnerving impression that if he chose to draw her into his arms, she’d be unable to resist.

  What did happen was that the door opened and Ben stood there, damp, windblown and breathless, and he took one look at the frozen little scene before his eyes and said in a voice quite unlike his own, ‘Let her go, damn you, Declan! I knew that’s what you were here for, but she was my father’s wife.’

  ‘Ben!’ Arizona protested, as Declan released her hand unhurriedly. ‘Ben, what are you doing here anyway? You—’

  ‘You thought I’d be well out of the way, didn’t you, Arizona? Well, I couldn’t stand those stupid boys so I came back.’ And with a furious gesture he turned and flung out of the room, slamming the door.

  ‘Ben!’ Arizona whispered and turned to Declan Holmes. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’

  ‘Something that doesn’t quite meet the eye?’ he suggested with his own eyes narrowed and thoughtful. ‘If he’s run away from his troop, is there any way you can get in touch with them to let them know he’s safe?’

  ‘I… yes,’ Arizona said agitatedly. ‘They have a mobile phone with them that they operate from the battery of their vehicle, only I can’t remember where I put the slip of paper…’ She looked around feverishly then took hold. ‘I know where it is—I’ll ring them. But what are we going to do with him? He—’

  ‘Leave him to me,’ Declan said evenly. He added, ‘Don’t go to bed until I see you again, Arizona.’

  She opened her mouth to say something angry but changed her mind at his look and turned away as he strode out.

  It was an hour before he came back to her, during which she’d been able to settle to nothing, and she was sitting disconsolately drinking another cup of coffee.

  ‘How is he? Is he all right? You weren’t too hard on him, were you?’

  He answered none of her questions as he closed the door and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  ‘Well?’ Arizona said impatiently.

  ‘Calm yourself, my dear,’ he murmured. ‘He’s fine—or rather, he will be fine soon. I made a suggestion to him that will, I think, solve a lot of his problems.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Boarding school.’

  ‘No! Don’t you think he’s feeling lonely enough as it is without being sent away from us? And then there’s Daintry—’

  ‘He can take Daintry. The school I have in mind, as well as being a particularly good school, has a riding school attached.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just listen to me, Arizona,’ Declan Holmes commanded and waited pointedly.

  ‘Go on,’ she said with a shrug after their gazes locked and she detected a will in this matter stronger than her own.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with irony. ‘He can come home for the weekend once a month and we can visit him one Sunday a month.’

  ‘It sounds as if we’re putting him in jail,’ she commented curtly.

  ‘What we’ll be doing, in fact, is putting him in the company of other boys his age, providing him with a first-class education, plenty of sport and little time to—mope.’

  Arizona stood up. ‘I still don’t like the thought of it one little bit.’

  ‘Then let me tell you what else we’ll be doing for him,’ he said dryly. ‘I hadn’t wanted to go into this and I promised him I wouldn’t so you’ll have to act as if you don’t know, but we’ll be removing him from the sheer torment of your presence.’

  Arizona turned and stared incredulously at Declan Holmes. ‘What do you mean?’ she whispered.

  ‘I mean that Ben is wildly, miserably and hopelessly in love with you, my dear Arizona, or thinks he is.’

  She gasped and paled. ‘I…he told you this?’

  ‘Yes, but only because I suspected it and—’ he gestured ‘—brought the subject up.’

  Arizona sat down abruptly. ‘But he’s only a boy!’

  ‘He’s fifteen, Arizona, and I can assure you it’s neither impossible nor anything particularly unusual.’

  She blinked rapidly. ‘But—I feel terrible!’

  Declan Holmes smiled slightly. ‘It’s not your fault. But do you see now why he’ll be much better off at boarding school?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said miserably then looked at Declan suddenly. ‘What does he think, though?’

  He shrugged. ‘He’s not exactly jumping for joy at the moment, but I think it’s helped to have a man-to-man chat, and I promise you, he’ll be fine.’

  ‘A man-to-man chat,’ she echoed.

  ‘Yes.’ He grimaced. ‘I told him I was in a similar position.’

  She stared at him and felt herself colour. ‘Not wildly, miserably, hopelessly in love with me, surely!’ she said to cover it.

  He returned her look with a little glint in his eyes of wicked amusement. ‘I told him I was greatly attracted and planned to marry you—after the first shock of it and after relieving himself of some bitter sentiments on the subject, we discussed it more rationally. I don’t suppose he’ll get over you immediately, Arizona, but he’s at least admitted to himself now that it’s out of the question.’

  ‘And he doesn’t—hate you?’

  ‘No—would you like him to?’

  ‘Of course not! I just…’ She looked confused and exasperated.

  ‘Don’t understand men?’ he said with a genuine grin. ‘He is only fifteen, not too young to think he’s in love but young enough for someone like me to be firm but understanding with him. I’m quite sure that before long a girl of his own age will come along and…’

  ‘Oh, I do hope so,’ Arizona said fervently. ‘Poor Ben.’

  Declan Holmes raised a wry eyebrow at her. ‘No spare sympathy for me? Considering that we were more or less in the same boat.’

  She tightened her lips and started to say something scathing but stopped as she was attacked by another thought. ‘So he knows—that means they’ll all know by tomorrow!’

  He regarded her narrowly. ‘Yes. But they had to know sooner or later. Why does it suddenly upset you, Arizona?’

  ‘Because I feel more trapped than ever.’ The words were out before she could stop them, and she saw his eyes change and harden. ‘I mean—’ But she couldn’t go on, and she was suddenly claimed by exhausted frustration so that the only thing to do was turn and walk out. He didn’t attempt to detain her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THEY had a custom, she and Cloris, that on Saturday mornings, Cloris brought her tea and toast in bed, and on Sunday mornings she did the same for Cloris. Not that Arizona took the opportunity to rise late often on Saturdays, but Cloris very m
uch enjoyed being cosseted on a Sunday morning and having the opportunity to read the Sunday papers that were delivered early in peace.

  But on this Saturday when Cloris came with her tea, Arizona woke from a deep sleep after spending most of the night tossing and turning, felt dreadful and unwisely mentioned this to Cloris while she was still half asleep then said that she wouldn’t be down early if Cloris could hold the fort.

  The result of this was that ten minutes later there was a knock on her door. She called out wearily to come in, expecting one of the children, but it was Declan Holmes who did.

  She was lying back against the pillows with her knees drawn up and her cup of tea in her hands resting on them, and for a moment she stared at him, stunned. He wore jeans, a khaki shirt with patch pockets and short brown riding boots, he was shaved, his thick dark hair was still damp from the shower and he looked alert but inscrutable.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she got out at last as their gazes clashed.

  ‘Morning, Arizona,’ he replied, his blue gaze drifting from her unbrushed hair looped behind her ears to her pink cotton nightshirt with a teddy bear’s picnic on the front, then moving briefly around the lovely room. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he added.

  Her lips parted and she frowned. ‘Nothing’s wrong with me and I don’t know why you feel you have the right to—’

  ‘Then why is Cloris convinced you’re sickening for something?’ he broke in.

  Arizona closed her eyes. ‘I didn’t tell her I was feeling sick!’

  ‘She said you said you were feeling dreadful and that it was quite unlike you to want to stay in bed and she’s wondering whether she should ring the doctor.’

  Arizona muttered something inaudible then took a deep breath and gazed bitterly at Declan Holmes. ‘I don’t know how I put up with her sometimes.’

  His lips twisted in a faint smile. ‘She has your best interests at heart.’

  ‘I know that. I…’ She tailed off frustratedly.

  ‘So you didn’t tell her you were feeling dreadful and wanted to stay in bed?’

  ‘Yes…no… I mean, yes, I did, but not because—look, I’m fine,’ she said coldly, ‘and I don’t appreciate your being here like this, so—’

  ‘Then if it’s not your health—’ he overrode her coolly ‘—you’ve been working yourself into a state about this self-imposed trap you’re walking into. Is that it, Arizona?’ he drawled, his eyes curiously mocking. ‘May I give you some advice?’

  She opened her mouth, closed it then said wearily, ‘I don’t suppose I can stop you. Just don’t expect me to act on it, Declan.’

  He paused, glanced out of the window and said as if changing topics, ‘It’s a beautiful morning, Arizona. The rain has gone, the ground is steaming gently in clear bright sunshine and smelling delicious. Two horses are saddled, moreover, as eager to have a good gallop before breakfast as I am, and you would be, too—if you weren’t lying in bed feeling sorry for yourself and building traps,’ he said softly and significantly.

  Arizona put her cup down, tossed aside the bedclothes and sprang up. ‘Go away!’ she commanded. ‘I will not be treated like this.’

  He looked her up and down, and his gaze lingered on the long expanse of slim legs her nightshirt exposed. ‘Like a child?’ he suggested gently, his eyes coming back to hers. ‘Then why don’t you stop behaving like one? Do you always wear teddy bears to bed?’ he added quizzically and went on thoughtfully. ‘I would have imagined you in something sexier, to go with your lovely bedroom.’

  ‘I’ve told you once, go away,’ Arizona said through her teeth.

  He shrugged and looked amused. ‘Only if you’ll come riding with me.’

  ‘Now it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.’

  They had dismounted at the cliff top above the beach, and their horses were cropping the grass. It had been a good gallop, and he’d been right about the sheer magic of the morning.

  Arizona was sitting on the turf, staring out to sea, a glittering, dancing sea. ‘No,’ she said briefly.

  ‘Not still sulking?’ he murmured and sat down beside her.

  She shrugged and thought a little dismally that she probably was but then again, didn’t she have cause? She decided to opt for honesty. ‘Most victims of blackmail probably don’t like it.’

  ‘Even when the results are this pleasant?’ He raised a wry eyebrow at her.

  ‘That sounds as if you’re a great believer in the end justifying the means,’ she countered.

  He grinned. ‘In this case, yes.’

  ‘Is that how you’ve got where you are?’

  ‘Are you asking me whether I’m unscrupulous and immoral, Arizona?’ he queried gravely.

  ‘Yes,’ she said baldly.

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  She glanced at him through her lashes, but that was a mistake, she discovered, as she encountered a grave blue gaze that didn’t for one moment hide from her the fact that he was laughing at her inwardly.

  She looked away. ‘That’s easy enough to say.’

  ‘True,’ he agreed blandly.

  ‘And not so easy to believe, particularly in light of your dealings with me,’ she murmured.

  ‘On the contrary, I feel I’m being highly honourable in my dealings with you. And before you say that I’m forcing you to marry me, Arizona—’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘With your connivance, my dear,’ he drawled. ‘Also your hidden interest, to yourself, that is. Do you know what Cloris said to me when she heard the news?’

  Arizona turned to him quite openly this time but once again looked stunned. ‘She knows!’

  ‘She knows,’ he agreed.

  ‘How? Has Ben—but he wasn’t up! None of the kids were.’

  ‘I told her. And what she said was this—that she’d thought it might be on the cards, that she was very happy for us both, that she thought I was the ideal person for you and she had the feeling you thought so too but you were a very stubborn person so not to feel too downhearted if you proved a little difficult.’

  ‘Of all the…I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Her exact words,’ Declan assured her. ‘Well, interspersed with typical Cloris kind of stops and starts. She must have sensed,’ he added, ‘your interest.’

  ‘I don’t at all see how she could have,’ Arizona said moodily. ‘It was all I could do not to let on how much I disliked you.’

  ‘Maybe it was just that, an irrational sort of dislike that made no sense. Perhaps that’s what alerted her.’

  Arizona lay back on the thick turf disgustedly. ‘The whole business annoys me intensely,’ she said tautly.

  He smiled unexpectedly. ‘That’s what I like about you, Arizona. One of the things.’

  ‘What?’ she asked irritably as he said no more. ‘That I get annoyed? I wouldn’t have thought it was an asset in a wife at all.’

  ‘Oh, it has its moments. You’re not dull to be with .’

  ‘I—’ But she stopped abruptly as He propped himself on his elbow beside her and stared into her eyes.

  ‘You?’ he murmured with a wryly raised eyebrow.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said shortly and would have moved away if a curious sense of, as it turned out, misplaced bravado hadn’t claimed her.

  ‘May I make another suggestion?’ he said after a minute or two.

  ‘Seeing as you’re so full of them this morning, why not?’

  ‘Here goes then,’ he said with a humorous quirk to his lips. ‘Now we’ve had a little spat, well, two, and it is only eight o’clock in the morning, now you’ve done that and done yourself proud, so to speak, don’t you think it would be all right to let yourself relax a little and—go with the flow? For a while at least?’

  ‘That’s the most illogical thing I’ve heard! It’s worse, it’s insulting!’

  ‘Depends how you take it.’

  ‘No! I mean there is no other way to take it. You’re saying in effect that…’ Words failed her.
<
br />   ‘All I’m saying is, until you relax and try it, you really don’t know what you’re fighting about.’

  ‘Try being kissed by you?’ she suggested ominously.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You never let up, do you?’

  ‘I thought we’d established that.’

  ‘All right,’ she said abruptly, ‘then let’s establish something else—go ahead.’ She closed her eyes and lay still.

  ‘I hesitate to disturb you, Arizona,’ he said quite gently after a pause, ‘but you look a bit ridiculous.’

  Her lashes flew up and her grey eyes flashed. ‘How dare you? You—’

  ‘You keeping saying that to me,’ he murmured.

  She sat up, her cheeks flooded with colour but her eyes just as angry, then she sprang up and caught her poor horse, taking it quite unawares, and swung herself into the saddle. She also yelled something pithy and highly uncomplimentary to Declan Holmes as she galloped off, and heard him laughing at her clearly.

  Breakfast was awaiting her in the kitchen. The children had theirs, Cloris informed her, and Ben had got away safely.

  ‘Got away? Where?’ Arizona said bewilderedly.

  ‘Didn’t Mr. Holmes tell you?’

  ‘No, Cloris, he did not!’

  Cloris shrugged. ‘He arranged for him to spend the weekend in Sydney with some friends of his. They have a yacht and a boy Ben’s age—he knows him, so that’s what they’ll be doing this weekend, sailing. I do think it was a lovely thing to do for Ben, don’t you, Arizona? He does need something to take him out of himself at the moment.’

  ‘But how did he get—’

  ‘I arranged for a car to come down and pick him up.’ Declan Holmes said smoothly, coming in through the back door.

  ‘You might have told me,’ Arizona protested, still feeling enraged and embarrassed.

  ‘Slipped my mind.’ He sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I’m starving.’

  Cloris glowed. ‘Well, I’ve got a lovely breakfast for you, Mr. Holmes. Do sit down, Arizona, it’s your favourite, too. You’re looking much better!’

  Arizona took a deep breath—and sat down. Cloris bustled about for a few minutes then produced perfectly cooked bacon and eggs with fried tomatoes and banana. It was as she poured their coffee that she produced her second bombshell. ‘Goodness me!’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t know where my wits are this morning. Rosemary Hickson called, Arizona, to remind you of her dinner party tonight. I told her it was just as well she had called because I’d forgotten and I thought you might have, too. But I explained why,’ she added anxiously.